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HomePatterns > How to write FAQs > Find out if you have answered the question


 

 

Find out if you have answered the question

This ploy takes a lot of guts.

At the end of each answer, ask whether you have provided the information the visitor needed.

  • "Did we answer your question?"
  • "Did you find out what you wanted to know?"

If yes, thank them, and offer to return them to the page they came from, when they entered your FAQ.

If no, provide a form to email back. 

  • If your engineers can manage, grab the URL of the page they are looking at, and put that in the subject line, so you know exactly what text they are talking about.  In a dropdown list, allow them to specify the kind of topic they were exploring. 
  • Ask in detail what they want to know.
  • Ask them to grade the quality of the FAQ, if you dare.
  • And give them plenty of open space to write, and write, and write their complaints, laments, life stories, whatever. Do not limit them to answering your questions; let them express themselves.

Make sure that the email form is addressed directly to you, personally. You need to find out if your answers are working. And you owe it to the visitor to clear up the confusion.

Only really bold sites do this. But think of the impression they make. A guest reads an answer, and it may make sense, but the guest sees the offer. Wow!

Of course, as the writer, you have to answer a lot of e-mail if your prose is murky.

Related article

Writing in a genre (Full chapter from Hot Text, in PDF, 770K, or about 13 minutes at 56K)

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) from Hot Text, Web Writing that Works (PDF, 995K, or about 18 minutes at 56K)

Hurray for FAQs (PricePoint)

Tell me how to solve my problem.

 

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